Study Of Synthetic Drugs Of Abuse And Crime

Based on the statistics and situation of the abuse, prevention and control of synthetic drugs, and from the perspective of judicial practice of anti-drug work, this paper summarizes the latest features and status quo of synthetic drugs-related crimes, explores the legal basis for such crimes and its improvement, and aims at putting forward countermeasures for the whole society to deal with drug abuse and crime problems.This paper is composed of three chapters. The first chapter elaborates on the concept, origin and characteristics of synthetic drugs, the earlier discovered 18 species of synthetic drugs and the newly discovered 6 species, the mechanism of addiction, behavior, and danger of abuse. Analysis is made on the unscientific use of the concept—"new drugs", and a new concept, "synthetic drugs", which has already been officially used by narcotics control departments, is brought up.The second chapter discusses the origin, features and reasons of the abuse of synthetic drugs, explores its overall situation, main species, case characteristics and development trend with a focus on the following four aspects:domestic illegal manufacturing of synthet ic drugs, smuggling of synthetic drugs from overseas, trafficking of synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals-related crimes.The main features of domestic illegal drug manufacturing and trafficking are:the major manufacturing area is being expanded to inland provinces from southeast coastal regions, and key manufacturing areas are on the rise; drug manufacturing processes and raw materials continues to change; different drug manufacturing sites and more and more hidden dens are being used; the illicit drug products flows to both domestic and overseas market, with an increase of domestic sales. Synthetic drugs in China mainly come from the "Golden Triangle" to the Southwest, some European countries, neighboring India, North Korea, and "Golden Crescent" to the Northwest. The main features of synthetic drugs' manufacturing, trafficking and smuggling are:armed organized criminal groups, complicated group members, intelligentized and specialized means of crime, concealment of drugs and diversified trafficking channels. The fight against precursor chemicals is faced with following problems:lawbreakers keep looking for new means of crimes, e.g. they trade via the internet to smuggle precursor chemicals out of China; some domestic companies manufacture and distribute precursor chemicals without permission, which may lead to the transfer of chemicals into illicit channels and the breakout of precursor chemicals-related cases.The third chapter outlines China's anti-drug work, analyzes the measures taken to control synthetic drugs and relevant crimes, the achievements we've made, and the difficulties and problems we are face with in this field, puts forward some countermeasures and emphasizes the work that should be strengthened.Problems facing are: plight of justice caused by inadequate legislation; difficulties in treating drug addicts due to backward medical treatment and underdeveloped research on new medicines on synthetic drugs; repeated drug trafficking and other crime issues because of the loopholes in the control work of precursor chemicals.Specific countermeasures include:to improve the legislation on differentiating illicit drugs from medicines; to carry out Affirmation Measures of Drug Addiction, which will provide standards of drug addiction as soon as possible; to improve laws relevant to prosecution and penalty so as to set up standards for synthetic drugs-related sentencing, and also laws on pregnant and lactating women involved in drug trafficking to curb the trend that more and more special groups are used to traffic drugs. Meanwhile, a comprehensive, well-targeted anti-drug program should be launched, including amplifying our prevention and control achievements to constantly reduce the demand for synthetic drugs, making more efforts to cut off the sources of drugs and crack down on drug-related cases so as to reduce the supply of synthetic drugs, improving management and strengthening scientific research efforts to reduce the harm made by synthetic drugs.